Notices by Dave Lane :flag_tino: 🇳🇿 (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz), page 10

@cjnielsen AWS is obscenely overpriced (15x more expensive for all our hosting needs - just like Azure), and pwned by the US gov't via the US Cloud and Patriot Acts. All their 'training' will be AWS-specific designed to lock businesses into their proprietary APIs. There are excellent (#FOSS) OpenStack clouds here in Aotearoa, run by NZ-owned companies. See, for example, https://catalystcloud.nz AWS and Azure are both invasive foreign pests. @airshipper

@billbennett good to hear you on #RNZ just now. Just wondering why you (or any tech pundits in the NZ media, really) didn't point out that the hand wringing concern about TikTok & misinformation/gov't interference could just as easily (and accurately) be applied to all the US-owned social media platforms... including the ones actively & pervasively used by our NZ government?

Out of curiosity: do Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook publish a comprehensive set of all their software terms of service (what you have to 'read' and type 'I ACCEPT' on before using their software) that's dated, attributed to the specific app it applied to, with diffs for all changes?

They all reserve the right to change them at their discretion & without notification, so how can anyone actually find out after the fact, what terms they've agreed to?

I've looked, but never found such a thing.

Seeing this: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/486167/parliamentary-service-bans-tiktok-on-its-devices makes me hopeful that all spying foreign software firms will be banded from gov't devices. That'd be Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and probably Apple and Amazon (among others, like Oracle) out the door. And it'd be a good riddance. Because, let's face it, the US gov't is probably at least as big a threat to Aotearoa NZ as China is. ( for the record, I'm a US citizen, born & raised, so I can say that)

@feld has it? I hadn't notice - any examples? @TheGibson

@Jdreben #BlueSky is to #ActivityPub like #MSFTOOXML is to #OpenDocumentFormat. Or, in other words, it's like a massive, self-interested world power introducing #ImperialUnits for measurement in a world where the #MetricSystem is already well entrenched with a claim that "diversity in standards" is useful.

Which, of course, is one of the reasons the rest of us can't have nice things.

This is promising http://forum.rvspace.org/t/upstream-status-of-visionfive-2s-hardware-support/1674/5 #VisionFive2 #RISCV

Listening to MediaWatch on RNZ, and the head of RNZ said he'd love to see all media in Aotearoa NZ collaborate on creating collective resources... I'd be delighted to see that, especially removing the foreign pseudo-media mega-tech-corporations from the loop. Stuff like *local* streaming services, social media...

@strypey I wish they'd apply the same thinking to all the stuff that NZ's woven deep into its digital fabric that's under the sway of an unreliable and unethical gov't, namely the US. (my homeland, before anyone accuses me of 'anti-US' sentiment. There're many reasons I'm grateful I was allowed to make Aotearoa NZ my home).

I cry inside a little every time I see an otherwise credible person rocking an @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com (ugh), @outlook.com, or, in NZ, an @xtra.co.nz, or, perish the thought, @clear.net.nz (among other yucky corporate email providers). Shows they don't know 'how to digital' well enough to exist comfortably in a modern world. Unfortunately, that's 95% of the population. Which is just one reason (of many!) I think we're in the thick of a digital Dark Age. https://davelane.nz/darkage

To be clear: most people don't know why this is a problem. Here're a few reasons:
1. it aligns you with a brand that many people consider poisonous, and
2. it shows you don't have your tech shit together enough to have your own branded email, and
3. it means your email communications are totally dependent on a (usually free) email service that is *harvesting data from every email *I* send to that person* and is adding data to an ad profile for me that they sell to their actual customers. Yuck

Moreover, when that service eventually starts charging you, and/or goes out of business, or gets EOL'd by the supplier, you'll be screwed, because you'll need to get everyone who emails you to adopt your new email, which is a massive pain in the ass. Also, it'll break all your web accounts that use an email address. A huge disruption. If you had your own domain, you could switch its hosting provider transparently without affecting the email everyone uses to contact you. It's a no-brainer today.

Here's the result...

Wouldn't it be funny if the first casualty of ChatGPT was marketing/ad agencies...

And the courgette pachadi...

On the danger of proprietary-software-based implanted medical devices https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-022-03810-5/index.html

@Suiseiseki thanks for keeping me honest. ? I'm not overly happy with Gitlab and their open core model. Looking at moving to Forgejo, but haven't done it yet. I do like OSMAnd+, and use it a lot, but when it comes to finding businesses and coordinating public transport trips, Google Maps is quite crucial at the moment. I only use non-#FOSS if there's nothing viable in that space... and I'm willing to manage quite a bit of inconvenience to do so... 1/2

@michael @anildash for the record, I've managed to divorce myself from just about all of the #FrightfulFive. I've never owned an Apple product, and use zero Microsoft anything, even closing my LinkedIn acct. Shifted off Github to my own Gitlabs. Don't use AWS or use Amazon. I have a Facebook account, but mostly use it to encourage people to move to the #Fediverse... I use LineageOS for my mobile devices & interactions with Google. Still use Google Maps (alongside OpenStreetMap.org). That's it.

@michael @anildash you can be entirely confident of that. They're not an ally. I've never even tried VSCode nor C# just because they've got MSFT taint on them. Haven't regretted their absence from my life one bit.

@michael @anildash true - especially for people in the US, it appears (the rest of us aren't quite as completely pwned). Have you see this? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/technology/techs-frightful-five-theyve-got-us.html It's why I tend to refer to the #FrightfulFive - that we've allowed ourselves to get to this point is pretty terrifying. Here in Aotearoa NZ, the FF have a stranglehold on our gov't IT systems. They could literally shut the country down if they thought we were misbehaving: https://davelane.nz/mshostage Escape is a matter of principle.